Frank Hugh Smallwood was first murdered on the 15th of April, 1927. Bookseller Theodore Terhune investigates an old homicide case after he stumbles on the freshly murdered corpse of seaman Frank Smallwood, a man thought to have been killed nearly twenty years previously during a houseboat party on the Thames. Smallwood’s alleged killer, Charles Cockburn, was convicted and served a lengthy prison sentence before being killed in the war. So who wants Smallwood dead now? And what actually happened between Smallwood and Cockburn all those years ago? A book of poetry found lying near the body puts Terhune on the trail of an unlikely murderer, in this entertaining blend of detective story and courtroom drama. Bruce Graeme (1900–82) was a pseudonym of Graham Montague Jeffries, an author of more than 100 crime novels and a founding member of the Crime Writers’ Association. He created six series sleuths, including bookseller and accidental detective Theodore Terhune, whose adventures—Seven Clues in Search of a Crime (1941)

House with Crooked Walls (1942)

A Case for Solomon (1943)

Work for the Hangman (1944)

Ten Trails to Tyburn (1944)

A Case of Books (1946) and And a Bottle of Rum (1949)—are republished by Moonstone Press.